Alt-fanfiction
by Swiper. No swiping
Summary: Mobotropolis is in danger. Will Vector and Espio find the Chaos Emeralds in time?
1. 1

_"I'm gonna stick my twelve-inch dick up your dirty asshole. You look like you have a dirty asshole."_  
—said to me by someone with a Mario backpack who seemed like he was having a good time, NoMa–Gallaudet U Metro Station, Washington, D.C., 2014.

* * *

 **1**

 _In which our heroes, Espio and Vector, begin their quest._

Nighttime. Light pollution has blotted out the stars in the sky. A dead body lies on a grassy hillside. In the distance behind the dead body, a slow-moving procession of headlights trickles down the turnpike, across the river, and away from Central City.

The dead body is human. It can't have been dead for more than three hours; rigor mortis hasn't even set in. The blood on its shirt is still wet. But it's not important how the dead body got here. It is also not important what the dead body is wearing. It has clothes. It is not a naked dead body. It is not even important who the dead body was. It is dead now.

Vector and Espio are masturbating onto the dead body.

As Vector shines his cellphone's flashlight from above for a better view, its cold glow desaturates Espio's bright red penis and makes Vector's look even paler.

Their hands rapidly pump their own glistening "love nozzles," slick with "exertion" (read: smegma.) There are no moans, no encouragement. Neither one gives any indication that he enjoys this. A cold breeze blows down the hill, across the dead body and their penises; they both shiver.

In Espio's mind, it is warm. He is naked in a private place with a lady. This lady is alive, not like the dead body below him in real life. Only existing in his brain, the alive lady keeps his nervous system aroused so that blood remains in his penis, which lets him jerk off onto the dead body. Espio finds this act difficult. Every now and then, he remembers that this lady is not actually stimulating him. And that he is jerking off onto a dead body—a dead body he doesn't even find attractive. Every time he remembers, the blood begins to flow back out of his penis, so he has to concentrate really hard on this naked imaginary lady.

Vector is jerking off while thinking about shoes. He really likes shoes. He is thinking about some new tennis shoes that cost $800. A famous basketball person was in the room or maybe in a nearby room while these shoes were being designed, and that's why they cost so much.

The thought of these new tennis shoes pushes Vector over the edge. A large stream of semen, the color and consistency of mayonnaise but smelling like a dirty sock, flies out of his dick onto the corpse's waxy face. Some lands in its open eye. Corpses don't flinch when semen gets in their eyes. That's a benefit we can all look forward to when we become corpses.

"Haw, haw," Vector wipes his hand off on his pants. "I came on it first. That means you gotta eat it."

"Vector," Espio says with a grimace, continuing to jerk himself off. "Don't be disgusting."


	2. 2

_"You know what would be really hot? Fucking some chick in the back of the bus with everybody watching us."_  
—said to me by someone immediately after he sat down next to me on a Greyhound bus in Salina, Kansas, 2011. Then we sat in silence all the way to Kansas City, where he transferred to a different bus.

* * *

 **2**

 _In which Espio contracts an oracle to tell his fortune by means of palmistry._

One of the waitresses calls his name, and he gets up from his table, follows her to a narrow and poorly lit stairwell behind the kitchen. Upstairs, nothing is illuminated. His eyes compensate. He makes out the crack of light seeping from underneath a closed door and realizes that's where he must go. The rotting wood creaks under his feet as he walks in the darkness, and the door squeaks on his hinges as he opens it.

Three human women await him in the next room. With an oxygen mask covering her mouth, the oracle herself sits naked on a table, legs spread by stirrups restraining her feet. Her eyes are closed; her breathing is deep. She is flanked by two women, also naked but veiled by white cloth. The oracle's bare vulva glistens in the dim light, from a sole candle held by the woman on her left. The woman on her right holds a brazier full of incense, stinking up the room.

"Sit," says a croaking voice. There is a chair in front of the table, between the stirrups holding the oracle's legs apart.

He does as he is told.

"We have a visitor before us, a wanderer who comes from the world beyond," the croaking voice continues. He sees the labia undulating in the dim light, and he realizes that the woman's vagina is actually the oracle he has come to see. He swallows hard.

"What is your name, wanderer?" asks the oracle.

"Espio," he responds.

"Ah, Espio," then the vulva makes a sound that Espio can only register as an intake of air into its vaginal canal. From all the incense in the room, he's half surprised that she doesn't cough.

"You have the stink of one who seeks his fortune," the oracle croaks. "You are suffused with trace scents: semen, soap, and tar. And underneath that, the stink of desperation, to which I have grown accustomed by those who seek my council. And you seek my council. You come to me with questions. Are you ready to receive answers?"

He nods, then realizes that the vulva probably can't see him nodding, so he says: "Yes."

"You are lying," the oracle says nonchalantly. "The deceit on your tongue reeks. But then I doubt it will make much difference whether you're ready for your destiny or not. Place your palm upon my body so that I may read your future."

His arm extends into space, but when he realizes what he's about to do, he hesitates. Takes a deep breath. Pushes forward again, regardless of the thick scent of incense that is now making him want to gag.

Then he makes contact. The vulva is moist against his palm. He expected this. Sweat and vaginal fluid. He stifles a gag. The labia scuttle against his palm, muttering something muffled into it. The chameleon flexes his fingers back, letting the base of his hand rest against the vulva.

The oracle breathes deep, then. He can feel cold air filter through his fingers and down his palm, and he shivers.

"Thank you," the oracle croaks. "That's much better. Now."

She hums against him. "Your head line is strong, but short. You make fast decisions. There's a split beneath your ring finger that will come soon. Something is coming to you that will shake your very foundations. If you survive it, you will be reborn. But the challenge will be to survive it."

"Your heart line is curved," the oracle continues. "A short head line and a curved heart line. You are a man driven much by impulse. Your nature has gotten you far in life as of now. You may not like where your emotions take you from now on. To learn temperance will be key to your success."

"Your life line," then the oracle stops. She smacks her labia together under his palm. "Your life line is like a wound deep into your palm. It stops abruptly. This is rare. Difficult times may lay ahead of you. Beneath it is a short line, almost running perpendicular to your life line. Another slash into the mount of Venus. You are going to get what you deserve, at the end of it all."

Espio's mouth is dry. "Are all your readings this grim?"

"Hardly," the oracle chuckles, somehow. "Many others have come to me with less interesting lives than yours. A home, a family in their future. Very rarely will they have many lessons to learn. But your destiny will take you somewhere strange. And that in itself should excite you. Now go. You will not return here."

As he gets up from his chair and walks toward the door, she shouts after him: "But you will go downstairs and have a pupusa. And you will tip our waitresses twenty percent."

When he emerges from the back stairway, the fluorescent lights from the front cut into his eyes, making them water. His eyes finally adjust to the light, then steps forward into the crowded room.

Human women dressed only in shiny unitards and high heels move throughout the room, fussing over a crowd of solely male patrons. Many of them watch the televisions throughout the room and ignore the waitresses. A foreign song quietly plays from an old stereo system in one corner—a singer crooning in a language Espio doesn't know over a 3/4 beat punctuated by brass instruments and accordions.

 _TV REPORTER: "…-rice, better known to history as 'Sonic,' the code name he used during his time as a key operative in the Knothole uprising. Since he was found shot in an abandoned warehouse several days ago, he has been in intensive care at St. James Hospital in northeast Central Ci…"_

As Espio gets nearer to their table, Vector leans back in his chair. One of the waitresses—a human; hair pulled up on top of her head, slightly to one side; a garish spandex unitard; knee-high socks; cheap pumps that have been spray painted gold—had taken a shine to the crocodile and was perched on his chair's armrest, encouraging him to eat the pupusas he'd ordered by way of rubbing his shoulders in a matronly way; when Vector leans back in his chair, the armrest digs up into her taint. She gets up and walks off, scowling in the direction of the serving station and fishing part of the unitard out of her ass crack.

"So how'd it go?" Vector talks through the half-chewed chunks of pupusa in his mouth.

Espio rubs his temples. His head hurts. "I don't wanna talk about it."

"That bad, huh? Well here's a psychic reading for ya: You're gonna die someday."

"Great. Thanks. You could have saved me fifty bucks."

"I'd've charged you," Vector says plainly.

Espio realizes that he needs to wash his hands, so he stops rubbing his temples.

 _TV REPORTER: "…urces have been unable to confirm whether or not Sonic's condition has changed since a few days ago, but we have been assured that he has received twenty-four-hour care from some of the country's best doct…"_

"Why the hell did you bring me here anyway," Vector shoves another chunk of pupusa into his mouth. "There's no fuckin' point to going to a psychic and if you wanted to go to a whorehouse full of illegals, I know this one on the other side of town that has cockfights. I mean, with roosters."

"Vector," the chameleon says. "What the fuck."

"Hey, buddy, I don't know what you're into," Vector points at Espio with his knife. "But I like my cockfights to stay about roosters only, you know what I mean?"

"That's not what I'm talking about," Espio says. "You don't know that any of these people are illegal. You can't know that."

Vector finally swallows the food in his mouth. "Oh, and you think that all these Mexican women hopped the border wall just to work at a goddamn whorehouse? I'm just callin' it like I see it."

"That's the kind of shit they used to say about us reptiles, Vector," Espio starts. But a waitress cuts him off.

"Have you decided what you would like to eat, señor?" she asks. This one's different than the one that had been sitting on Vector's armrest—her hair is pulled back behind her head, and she wears a silver unitard.

Looking at clothing and other cues is all Espio can do to differentiate humans. They all look alike to him. "I haven't, no."

Vector grins an awful grin. "Hey, your English is pretty good. You must have been here a long time. Where you from?"

"I'm from Central City," the waitress says with a frown.

"No, I mean like," Vector moves his fork in a circular pattern. "Where are you from? Don't worry, we ain't cops."

The waitress's frown deepens. "I am Salvadoreña, if that's what you mean."

"Yeah. Salvadoreña, huh?" Vector takes a good at the waitress's shoes. "What part of Mexico is that again?"


	3. 3

" _I'm gonna kick Michael Jackson's ass and give Never-Never Land back to the single mothers of America."  
_ —said by someone who seemed like he was having a good time after he climbed on stage at an anti–George W. Bush rally, multimedia concert and poetry slam, Grass Valley, California, 2005.

* * *

 **3**

 _In which our heroes hear the call of adventure._

"I'm just saying, I don't trust bees," says Vector.

"Vector, you can't call them that anymore," says Espio through grit teeth. "At least not to their faces. They prefer to be called Apis-Mobians."

The apartment building's hallway is dingy, peeling wallpaper bloated with moisture damage. Somebody's recently kicked in an electrical outlet in the hallway and the wires spark every now and then; some of those sparks have apparently caused small fires, burning the carcass of what was once a colorful ornamental rug.

"Whatever," Vector picks his nose with his pinky. "I'm just saying."

" _What_ are you just saying, dude," Espio says. "Apis-Mobians have been through a bunch of really hard shit."

"I'm just _saying_ , man," Vector is just saying. "I've heard shit."

"Shit like what?"

Outside, somebody screams. Neither of them notice.

"Shit like the blood sacrifices that go on inside their secret hives, their anatomy that allows them to fly even though physically they shouldn't be able to, the fact that they're trying to undermine our family values by putting trannies on television… oh, and the fact that they control the world's supply of honey."

After three tries, Vector successfully flicks a booger off the end of his finger onto the wall, where it sticks. Part of him is now a part of the apartment building forever. Then he continues his thought: "How is all that not shady?"

Espio's eyebrows furrow. "Don't they _make_ the world's supply of honey?"

"That's just a Buzzionist lie," Vector resumes picking his nose. "They make all kinds of shit up. Like the fact that Mobius is round."

His chameleon companion groans, looks at the ceiling. "Not the flat Mobius theory again."

"I'm serious, man," the crocodile says, seriously. "If it were round, then we'd be able to see its curvature, right?"

"Vector, we've been over this. You're too small. You can't see the curvature of Mobius because you're too small. It just _looks_ flat to you because you're too small."

Vector scoffs. "Whatever, man. That's just what the bees want you to think."

That response makes one of Espio's eyebrows attempt to escape his brow for his forehead. "Why would bees—excuse me, Apis-Mobians— _want_ you to think that Mobius is round?"

The crocodile just shakes his head. "To keep us from finding out where they hide the fucking honey, man! I'm serious, if you'd just go on /pol/ like, _once_!"

That's when the apartment door opens. An older bee sticks his head out into the hallway, gives the pair of reptiles a once-over.

"What are you schmucks doing out in the hall?" It's a rhetorical question, because schmucks only exist in the hall. In their own apartments, anyone can act like a schmuck to their heart's content without being observed. It is only when schmuckery is observed that one becomes a schmuck. Anyway, the bee gestures to them. "Come inside before someone sees you."

He leads them inside, then walks into the kitchen. The apartment is just as water damaged as the hallway. Stacks of old newspapers stinking of mildew fill up the entry hall; **this is also a fire hazard. Do not stack wet newspapers in your apartment's entryway.**

Tacked to the wall among the photos of bee relatives is a map of Mobius, _flat_ —a Mercator projection, which inflates the landmasses at the two vertical extremes to appear much larger than they actually are. Vector points this map out to Espio while raising both his eyebrows. Espio pretends not to notice.

"I'm making some tea, if you want any," the bee calls from the kitchen. "Unless you're going to bitch about drinking caffeine this late at night."

"Don't drink the tea," Vector whispers to Espio. "It could have (((honey))) in it."

"How did you do that?" Espio whispers back. "With the parentheses?"

In the living room, the TV is on with nobody watching it. One human man is holding a human woman up with his arms underneath her armpits while another man picks up her head. Damp hair sticks to her forehead. Her eyes have both been bruised black, one of them swollen completely shut. Blood drips from her nostrils.

 _WOMAN: Why… are you doing this? … Please…_

Then the man holding her head up hits her with the back of his free hand as hard as possible. The contact makes a wet thud.

 _WOMAN: Stop! Please s-stop!_

 _MAN: Thtop! Please th-th-th-thtop!_

That earns a laugh from the man holding her up. Her other attacker slams his kneecap into her skull. As she is let go, her body crumples onto the floor. She doesn't move.

 _ANNOUNCER: "Beating a Woman Comedy Hour" will return after these messages!_

"Wait, what is that on TV?" the bee calls from the kitchen again, then pokes his head around the wall that separates it from the living room. "Is that _Beating a Woman Comedy Hour_?"

"Yeah," says Espio. "Why?"

"Huh." There's confusion on the bee's face. "Funny."

"Because they're beating a woman?"

"No, because that's my kid's favorite show. He's always home by now. Wonder where he's got to?"

"You let your kid run around the city at night?" Espio asks, bewildered. Clearly he's never heard of free-range parenting.

"C'mere, you schmucks," the bee says, observing further schmuckery. He gestures to the kitchen. "I've got something to show you."

In the kitchen, there is a table. This is not what he wanted to show them. On the table are two steaming mugs of tea, one which Vector will not touch. Espio does touch the other one, which makes Vector roll his eyes. How much more of his unsolicited advice will Espio ignore?

The tea is not what the bee wanted to show them either. He's got a velvet bag in his hands. The bag contains something heavy.

" _This_ is what I wanted to show you," he says. "This is the job I need you to do for me."

"What's in there?" Vector asks. All of the features on his face seem to have been drawn to a single, suspicious point.

At this, the bee walks to the table and upends the bag. An impossibly bright red gem falls out, large enough to fit comfortably in the palm of somebody's hand.

"Is that a Chaos Emerald?" the crocodile continues asking questions for some reason. "How did you get it?"

"That's not important," deflects the bee. "You ever wonder why they call them _Chaos_ Emeralds?"

Holding the Chaos Emerald against the table, the bee turns his gaze from one reptile to the other. Then, producing a razor blade in his other hand, he proceeds to slice into the emerald, removing a sizable chunk.

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa _whoa_ ," Espio starts going on. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Hey, calm down, now," the bee commands. "Watch."

A flash of light bursts before the pair of reptiles' eyes, turning everything white. As it dissipates, they remove their forearms from their faces to see that the Chaos Emerald has fixed itself.

"Y'see? These things can do anything—even defy entropy," the bee says while further cutting up the piece of Chaos Emerald with the razor blade. He works fast, crushing it into powder. "That's why they're the Chaos Emeralds. Now, you boys ever done a hit of pure Chaos before?"

"Uh, no," says Espio.

"Wait, you mean that powdered Chaos comes from the Emeralds?" asks Vector. "I always thought it was just a shitty street drug made from like, rat poison or embalming fluid or something."

"And you'd usually be right," the bee explains, divvying up the powder into lines. " _Real_ Chaos is way too expensive to be selling on the street to just anybody. Usually it's reserved for the elite of the elite. You wanna try?"

"Nah, I'm straight," Vector says.

"Yeah, I figured you for the straight one," says the bee as he hands a straw to Espio. "How about you, purple?"

"Uh, sure?" Espio says, taking the straw. "Wait—"

"Just snort it; we don't have all night here."

Espio does. As in, he snorts it. Espio hasn't got all night here, either. Just wanted to clarify.

"Now," the bee says. "This is one Emerald of two I'm supposed to have. The other one has gone missing."

"It's gone missing?" Vector folds his arms in front of his chest. "As in, been stolen?"

"Yeah, that's how these things tend to go missing," says the bee.

"When?"

"Today, you schmuck," the bee points at Vector with the razor, and the crocodile's hands leap up to his eyes in reflex. "You think I'd wait more than a few hours to call someone about something like this?"

"Did—uh, was there like a burglar or something? Did you notice anything else missing?"

"Shit." The bee swears and cuts off another chunk of the red Emerald simultaneously—another blinding flash lights up the room, and the Emerald is again whole. "Why are you talking like a cop all of a sudden? Are you a narc?"

"Fuck you, asshole," the crocodile's voice is suddenly angry, posturing. "I've been called a lot of things but never a narc."

"Alright, alright, calm it down," says the bee.

Espio is not here anymore. Espio is paisleys now.

"The thing is, see—" the bee holds that thought to start chopping up the fragment he cut for himself. "The thing is that people who tend to have a lot of Chaos Emeralds can just kind of zip in and zip out of places without making a huge mess. Teleportation or what have you. These things call out to each other, you know."

"That's creepy."

"Yeah, but that's also how you're gonna find the other one for me."

"Oh?"

"What, you didn't think I called you up to get you high and feed you honey, did you? I'm hiring you two to find me the Chaos Emerald I lost—or just another one. I paid for two and I want two; I'm not picky."

Espio isn't paying attention to any of this. Espio is paisleys, floating on a rippling sea of cough syrup. It doesn't feel nice. It feels like something is welling up within his body. He is not usually paisleys, is he? He can't remember. It feels like this is all that was here before and all that will be here from now on. That terrifies him.

"Is this all there is now here for the rest of my life?" he asks. He didn't mean to ask it like that. There were different words he should have said.

The cough syrup reminds him of the ocean and the ocean is on the planet Mobius, which is spherical—not flat, like Vector thinks. Where is Vector? Is he here? Oh, there he is, on top of Mobius! Espio can see him there. He wants to wave but he doesn't know if Vector will see him. Vector is wearing shoes. Vector really likes shoes, doesn't he? That's a funny thing about Vector that Espio doesn't understand. Vector walks around on Mobius, doesn't he? Espio sees him doing that now. Wow! Look at him go! He is smiling and walking and Mobius is turning underneath him so that it always looks like he's on the same point. Maybe that's why he thinks it's flat!

The world opens. He knew it would open, and it does; a cross-section comes out of it, like something he'd seen in science class. He can see all the way into the rocky mantle and then the molten core of the planet. Vector doesn't seem to mind that part of the planet is missing; he keeps walking around it like nothing's wrong.

Espio stares at the core, feeling sweat begin to drip off his forehead and onto his fingers. He's still at the table in the bee's—excuse him, Apis-Mobian's—apartment, gripping his head, staring out into nothing. But he's also not there. He's not even on the planet. He's in space, staring into the core. He can't look away from it.

"Espio." Vector snaps his fingers. "Wake the fuck up."

"Oh, he's feeling it," the bee says with a nasty chuckle. "Kids these days don't know how to handle their drugs. He'll be right as rain in a few minutes—well, _for_ a few minutes, anyway."

He plugs up one nostril and puts the straw in the other, then snorts up the delicious line of crushed stone. "This shit is my spinach, son," and he laughs again.

"So you want us to take that Emerald and track down the other one?"

In response, the bee makes a sound like a boiling teapot. "No, obviously," he says. "You'll get a chunk. That'll work the same."

"How will we know if—" Vector scratches at his nose. "How will we know if we're close to another Emerald?"

"You'll know," the bee responds, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. "Trust me."

But Vector doesn't. He doesn't trust bees at all.

Returning after a momentary vacation from reality, the bee leans forward and cuts another chunk off—flash—then holds it between his thumb and forefinger, waving it in front of Espio's stoned-ass face. "Hey," he says, too loudly. "Don't snort this one, okay?"

But Espio doesn't hear him. There is a human lady there at the center of Mobius. She is not a human lady that Espio can remember seeing before. (But then again all humans look alike, don't they?) There are pieces of blue duct tape stuck to her face. Suddenly, she telescopes out into space, directly at him.

"Hello, I'm Francine," the woman says through a beatific smile. "The tape lady."


End file.
